I can taste a conviction. I’m on the edge of my seat as I watch John kiss Dr. Staples then stroll into William Patrick’s room like he hasn’t got a care in the world.
I blow out a hard breath filled with disdain. What a lowlife.
At 9:23 p.m., he walks out of Bill’s hospital room. He calls to Dr. Staples, and she stops looking at whatever she was pretending to read and catches up with him at the exit. They open the door with her key card and walk out of the intensive care unit just as casually as they walked in. That was her second mistake, using her keycard. I can now put her in the ICU at the time of William Patrick’s death. Her first mistake was getting involved with a user like John Sharp in the first place. I’ve got her cornered. A woman like that will sing like a canary to keep her pretty little neck out of doing hard time.
8:37 p.m.
I stand in the surveillance booth, grinning like I’ll never be able to stop. Christmas has come early this year. My arms are crossed as I focus on Dr. Helen Staples sitting in the interrogation room. Her back is straight, hands folded on the table, just waiting. A woman like her knows what to do next. First she’ll ask me for the charge, then she’ll ask for a lawyer. People who are flush with enough cash to throw at high-powered legal representation always sit there like she’s sitting—cool, calm, and collected, waiting to be released so they can go home and sleep it off in their thousand-thread-count sheets.
The captain steps up behind me. “Ready to take a crack at her?”
I look her over again. She’s actually beautiful—brunette with rose-petal-soft skin and her fine hair tied into a ponytail. I bet it was easy for her to break the law. Beautiful women like her are used to getting what they want even when it breaks the law.
“I’m ready,” I say.
No hesitation needed. No deep breath to take. I go into the interrogation room, close the door, and get to work.
31
Nolan and I woke up early to finish up at Bill’s house. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since we left Detective Molina’s office. We probably won’t hear from him for a while, but at least Nolan’s in better spirits, knowing he’s in the process of getting answers to something that’s been bothering him for a long time.
We’re now in the cellar, carefully placing Bill’s wine collection into crates. This is the last room to pack.
“So you’re definitely going to buy out Kelsey?” I ask.
“Yep. Pete and Donald have already drafted the final offer, and Kelsey’s accepted.”
I stop in the middle of stuffing crinkled strips of paper around a wine bottle. “Wow, so it wasn’t an act?”
He sniffs a chuckle. “Shocked the hell out of me too.” Nolan takes a bottle of wine off the rack. “Here it is.” He walks over to me and hands me the bottle. “I want to give this to your mother.”
I take it and read the label. I raise my eyebrows, impressed. “Mes Fleurs? Fancy. Expensive.”
Nolan puts his arms around me and kisses me tenderly. “Only the best for you, babe.”
I beam at him. Goodness, he makes me feel so good. I can’t imagine another man could ever make me feel this way. “Well… it’s for my mom.”
“And she made you, so she’s extra special to me.”
I chuckle.
Nolan is about to kiss me again when his cell phone rings in his pocket.
He groans. “Keep your lips ready.”
I roll my eyes cutesy-like and return to stuffing strips of paper around a wine bottle.
“This is Nolan,” he says, answering the call. “Oh, Detective Molina.”
I instantly look at him. He’s already watching me.
“Okay. I—I mean, we are on our way.”
When Detective Molina called Nolan and asked him to come down to the station, all he would say was that he had some news for him and depending on how you looked it, the news was really good or really bad.
The same woman who escorted us yesterday takes us to the same office we met Molina in yesterday, and it dawns on me that this isn’t his personal office. There are no plaques on the walls, file cabinets, or personal photos. There isn’t even a nameplate on the door or desk.
“Molina will be in shortly,” she says.
“Thank you,” Nolan says as we sit.
Nolan takes my hand with a nice firm grip. I can tell he’s nervous.
“Good…” Detective Molina checks his watch as he sweeps past us. “I can’t believe it’s almost noon.”
He sits across from us. The sound of the bolts creaking in his chair is a welcome sign of new activity in the room.
“How are you?” Detective Molina’s gaze shifts between Nolan and me.
“We’re fine,” Nolan says. Detective Molina might not notice, but Nolan is beyond impatient. “I didn’t expect to hear back from you so soon.”
Detective Molina sniffs. “Sloppiness always makes a case easy to work, and boy, were they sloppy.”
“They?” Nolan asks.
Detective Molina goes on to tell us how he connected a woman named Dr. Helene Staples to John then connected them both to Bill’s death.
“Dr. Staples was arrested while trying to distribute the drug to a cancer patient. We brought her in, and I showed her the evidence against her. As soon as she saw that vial, and as soon as she understood I had evidence that linked her to John Sharp and could prove that she was in the intensive care unit on the night of your father’s death, she did what I knew she would—she sang like a canary.”
“And you said she worked at a clinic downtown?” I ask.
“Not a clinic—a private medical office. She’s one of those kooky people who believes she was doing the Lord’s work. But she ended up getting involved in a relationship with John Sharp, and that’s when she got sloppy.”
“What do you mean?” Nolan asks.
Molina sits back in his chair. “Like you said, Mr. Patrick, the guy uses women. She said he sought her out, started an affair with her, and talked her into giving him the drug for free. Xen-deux is an expensive drug.”
“Do you mind saying how expensive?” I ask.
“Seventy thousand a pop. I guess some people really want to get out of here.”
“Then you arrested John?” Nolan asks, sitting on the edge of his seat.
The detective nods. “I personally put handcuffs on him this morning.”
Nolan sighs as he releases the tension in his body. He also loosens the grip on my hand. “I would like to say thank you, Detective Molina. You didn’t have to pursue this as hard as you have, but you did.”
He waves. “It was nothing. I’ve come realize that when it goes this smoothly, it just proves that these arrests were meant to be. Besides, you’re the one who helped us out. We’ve been looking for a bottle of Xen-deux ever since we came across the stuff.”
Suddenly Nolan looks at me with sadness in his eyes. “He killed my father.”
I rub his knee, trying to comfort him.
He takes a deep breath and turns in the opposite direction to glare at the wall. “And what did he gain from it?”
“Well…” Molina smirks. “A lengthy jail sentence, for one. The DA is itching to take the case to trial. And when those guys are this eager, it’s only because the evidence is strong.”
Nolan searches Molina’s face. “Well, that’s some solace.”
32
After leaving Molina’s office yesterday, Nolan and I went straight home. He rested while I called the movers and rescheduled the transferring of the final boxes, which contained Bill’s wine collection, to Nolan’s cellar today. After that, we didn’t do much but crawl in bed with the hearty chicken salad sandwiches I’d made and watch TV. At some point between us making out, making love, and watching more silly sitcoms, the news came on. The top story of the night was about Dr. Helene Staples and John Sharp, but I turned off the TV before they could mention how they’d murdered Bill. We lay silently for a while, but eventually we kissed and fell asleep.
Now it’
s late morning. The movers met us at Bill’s house at eight o’clock. It didn’t take us long to pack up the rest of the wine, and now as I walk into the foyer from the kitchen, I turn toward the living room and see Nolan standing in the middle of it, looking around.
I walk up behind him and wrap my arms around him. “You’re going to miss this house, aren’t you?”
Nolan sighs. “I don’t know, Abs.”
“You don’t know if you’re going to miss it or not?”
He sniffs a chuckle. “That’s not it. After learning what really happened to my father, selling the house doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.” He sighs again. “But there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
He falls silent. I wish I had the words to comfort him, though he did wake up feeling better than he had after we got back from the police station. I just wish I could make his pain, and the awful experience of losing Bill, go away.
“You know we can reschedule dinner at Mom’s house,” I say.
“No,” he says in a rush. Nolan guides me around to the front of him. “I want to go. It’ll be good for the both of us.”
Our lips melt together, and his warm tongue swirls around mine. Kissing him never fails to make my head spin. But we pull our mouths apart right before we can decide to take our kissing to the next level.
My parents live in the Seward neighborhood on West River Parkway. Nolan and I stop in front of their door. I’m nervous as heck. This is the first time Nolan is meeting my family.
I take a deep, settling breath. “Do you have the wine?”
Nolan holds up the bottle. “It’s here.”
Geez, I hadn’t noticed him carrying it. Suddenly I furrow my eyebrows and incline my ear to the door. “Do you hear that?”
Nolan does that same. “Is that music?”
“Ugh,” I groan dreadfully. “It’s Calypso music. They’re going to embarrass me. I just know it.”
Nolan puts his face toward mine. “It’s okay, babe. I already love you.” He kisses my cheek.
I love hearing Nolan tell me he loves me. He’s said it more than once, and the longer we’re together, the more I believe him. And yes, my family is a little on the eccentric side, but I feel bad for being self-conscious about it. My mom and dad are the reasons why I am who I am. I like who I am, and so does Nolan.
“I love you too, babe,” I say.
When we kiss again, it becomes a hot and heavy kiss.
Suddenly the door opens. “Hey, sis!”
Nolan and I rip apart.
“Brian!” I look at him, surprised, and lunge into his arms.
“Sorry to interrupt, but would you get in here already?” He lets go of me and extends his hand toward Nolan. “You must be Nolan.”
Nolan shakes Brian’s hand. “Yes. Nice to finally meet you.”
Now that that’s over, we go inside. The first thing I notice is Mom and Dad are in rare form as usual. They’re dancing a cross between a samba and a disco in the middle of the living room. Dad’s wearing khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, and Mom’s in a spaghetti-strap, blousy sundress. One thing’s for sure—my parents have mastered the wonderful and fun life they made for themselves.
“Hi, Mom and Dad,” I say loud enough so they can hear me over the music.
“Abby!” my mom says, opening her arms in my direction.
“Princess!” my dad exclaims.
Mom dances in my direction and hugs me as Dad goes to turn down the music.
“Oh, you must be Nolan,” she says, smiling broadly before hugging him.
Nolan hugs her back. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Banks.”
“Call me Judy.”
Dad hugs me then shakes Nolan’s hand. “And call me Jerry.”
I feel a sense of relief that we’ve survived the first introductions. I don’t know why I was so nervous. My mom and dad are two of the best people on earth.
Nolan smiles as he hands my mom the bottle of wine. “This is for you, Judy. I heard you like fine wine.”
My mom reads the label. “Mes Fleurs.” She winks at me. “We love him already, Abby.”
Next Brian introduces me to his date. She’s a pretty woman who looks to be in her late twenties with long black hair and horn-rimmed glasses. I hadn’t even seen her sitting on the couch so quietly. She gets up just to make my acquaintance.
“This is Nadia,” Brian says.
“Oh?” I say, intrigued.
“We worked together in the Baltic Sea.”
I give her a hug, and she shakes Nolan’s hand.
Soon after we finish introductions, Mom, Nadia, and I set the table for dinner. Once we’re ready to eat, we all sit in front of plates of rib roast, glazed carrots, rice pilaf, and fresh-baked rolls. Mom and Dad are at each end of the table with Brian and Nadia on one side and Nolan and me on the other.
“This looks fantastic, Judy,” Nolan says.
“Why thank you, Nolan. Everyone, please dig in,” my mom says.
And that’s exactly what we do. The food is delicious. Brian and Nolan talk about their jobs for a bit, and after that I ask Brian how he and Nadia started dating.
“We met on a tanker in the Baltic Sea,” he says.
“We were working with the human genome project,” Nadia says in a clinical tone.
“Now that sounds interesting,” my dad says.
Nadia looks at him with a puzzled smile. I’m pretty sure she’s going to need some time to get used to my parents’ carefree nature.
“At first we would spend hours in the lab together and hardly even speak,” Brian says, gesturing emphatically.
Nadia smiles a little. “His first words to me were, ‘You know what? I’m tired of pretending as if you’re not distractingly beautiful,’” she says, doing her best impersonation of Brian’s voice.
We all laugh.
“That sounds just like something he’d say, right, Mom?” I say.
“Indeed it does,” my mom says.
“And that’s my boy,” my dad adds. “Go for what you want. I taught him that.”
Suddenly, Nolan clears his throat loudly and wipes his mouth. “Speaking of going for what you want…”
I watch him curiously as he stands then gets down on one knee in front of me.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I already gave my blessing,” my dad says.
I quickly turn to look at him. My dad’s smiling like he’s just won the lottery or something. My mom and Brian look just as happy.
“You spoke to my parents before tonight?” I ask.
“I did, babe,” Nolan says. “Abby?”
“Huh?” My skin is running hot, and I put my hand over my mouth.
“I knew I would be with you forever from the first moment you spilled coffee on me.”
Everyone laughs. I blink rapidly as I try to remember what he’s talking about, but when I calm down long enough to gaze into his eyes, the memory of hot coffee slamming into his chest one cold winter morning is as clear as day.
Instead of talking, I nod.
“So, Abby Banks, would you marry me?” Nolan asks.
I grab my chest and nearly hyperventilate. Can this be happening? I look at my mom, who’s nearly screaming in celebration. My dad is tickled pink. Brian and Nadia are holding hands.
“Answer already,” my mom says.
My eyes have filled with tears. Little did I know when I met Nolan a year and a half ago that I’d be sitting here with him and my family now in this moment. “Yes!” I sing, overjoyed. “A thousand times yes!”
Nolan sweeps me out of my seat and into his arms. He hugs me so tightly that I think I lose my breath. This is the happiest moment of my life.
He whispers in my ear, “Thank you, baby. I’m going to make you so happy.”
Mom dances over to the stereo. “This is a moment to celebrate!” She turns on the Calypso music.
For the rest of the night, we dance, and dance, and dance some more. When it’s over, Nolan and I go hom
e and make love as we’ve never made love before.
33
Eight months later…
Our wedding was beautiful. Of course, to make my parents happy, we did a whole lot of dancing.
I transferred to a university here in Minneapolis to be closer to home, and Nolan. I’ve just gotten out of my seminar, and Nolan has picked me up from school. Nolan said he has a surprise for me, so I’m sitting in the front seat of his car with a yellow ribbon tied around my eyes.
“How are you and junior doing this afternoon?” he asks.
I rub my inflated belly. I’m eight months pregnant, and it shows. “Just like Mommy, he’s hungry. So where are you taking me?” I’m a little snappy.
“I knew your blood sugar would be low, so I’ve got food covered too. So just sit back, Abs, and enjoy the ride, my love,” he says.
I blow out a hard breath. “Nolan, baby, I’ve got to say that this little game you’re playing would be a lot more fun if I had a sandwich and if I didn’t have to pee.”
He laughs. “Just hold on a little longer. I’m turning the corner right now. Do you feel the car turning the corner?”
“Barely,” I’m still not a happy camper.
“Well it did, and now we’re here.” The car stops. “Stay put.”
Nolan opens his door and gets out. A few seconds later, my door opens. He helps me out then takes the ribbon off my eyes.
“Ta-da,” he says.
I frown at what’s before me. “It’s Bill’s house.”
Nolan’s beaming. “It’s our house.”
I frown, puzzled. “But I thought you sold it.”
“The sale fell through,” he says ecstatically.
I give the house another once-over. It’s so big, so lovely. “Oh my God.”
Nolan sounds dejected as he says, “Of course, if you don’t want to live here…”
I squeeze his arm to stop him from saying more. “Of course I want it.”
He takes my hand. “Listen, Abs, I want to make new memories in this house with you and our family. I feel my dad in this house, and I know he would want us to live here.”
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